Honoring

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

She had to take her nursing infant 
with her to her final exam
because the babysitter hadn’t shown up.

The professor threw her out,
but she completed her degree 
and has been teaching for thirty years.

Now she is facing another exam, 
one called cancer.

We, as mothers, daughters, and grandmothers,
are connected through our wombs.
We will stand with her, all of us together.
No one will throw her out.